


Nuptial Sheets

by lexyhamilton (ohheichoumyheichou)



Series: How Have the Mighty Fallen [7]
Category: Christian Bible (Old Testament), תנ"ך | Tanakh
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 02:03:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2370371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohheichoumyheichou/pseuds/lexyhamilton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I always wondered what Jonathan would think of David marrying his sister.  There's more than one potential version in my head.  Here's the depressed/peeved reaction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nuptial Sheets

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2009, reposted from LJ, AFF.net etc  
> Blanket disclaimer on all my biblefic: this is fiction inspired by stories and characters in the Old Testament, not any sort of exegesis or legitimate interpretation.

Michal circles David seven times, her face veiled and cast down, but David can easily recognize her by her gait alone, dainty and shy. She stops, and he uncovers her face, kisses her, sips from the cup of wine, extends the cup of wine to her and she drinks.

His first wedding ceremony, he realizes, when the act is already over. He walked through it as if in a dream, as if he is certain that there will be many more. Theirs is a political marriage perhaps, but he does love her, in a way, and God must be displeased at such callous, hurried proceedings. 

"Go forth, my son." Saul spits out the words, throwing the pristine linen cloth at David with a force that could be interpreted as jocular by all but the shrewdest observers. “Extend the House of Saul.”

"Be quick about it, son of Jesse! We all want to get down to celebrating," Abner bellows. Raucous laughter rises, as it is mostly coarse, military men who are gathered—even Michal’s stately mother Ahinoam was not called from her unofficial exile to attend.

David looks back at the king and his cousin, forcing himself to grin, tucking the sheet under his arm.

“Where is David’s best man?” someone suddenly yells. David throws a panicked glance over the large crowd. The wedding preparations were criminally rushed—Michal was supposed to go through four months of purification, he was supposed to draw up the written contract before, but Saul, ever impulsive, had pushed for the wedding immediately after his return from the field with the dowry. He had hardly had enough time to purify himself from bloodshed before he was escorting Michal in the torch-lit procession. His family had not had time to travel from Bethlehem, and so a man with seven older brothers was left standing bewildered and alone.

“Jonathan, make yourself useful.” Saul all but pulled his son from behind him. “David is a great friend of yours, is he not? Do him this service.”

“Gladly,” Jonathan murmurs, but the stiff smile he has managed throughout the ceremony withers. His face is grey and lifeless as he takes his post, and pulls aside the cloth to the bridal chamber.

“Thank you, Brother,” David says, loud enough for the spectators to hear, touching Jonathan’s arm ever so lightly as he walks in, but Jonathan will not meet gazes. Michal takes a moment to embrace her brother, and David feels a pang of jealousy when he sees her small frame in a soldier’s tight embrace, sees her head kissed by Jonathan even as his eyes stay pointedly away from David’s person. 

The cloth flap closes and the outside commotion is muffled. Finally, David really looks at Michal. He throws the linen over the bed and extends his hand to her. She is smiling but there is a terror in her eyes, which dart back and forth from David to the cloth separating them from the boorish crowd.

“Your brother will keep them out.” David breathes in deeply and smiles. “Shall we?”

Michal nods. She who has been so talkative and effusive in the past is now tongue-tied, and her hands shake as she doffs off her white clothes.

David positions himself between her thighs, agitation only making him all the more ready, and enters against resistance, feeling warm blood dripping, seeing sweat break out on Michal’s pale forehead.

He glances down at the linen. “Red, perfect, virginal. The task is done, for all they will know.”

Michal bursts into a spastic laugh through her tears. Her lips press together as he begins to piston in and out, almost enjoying himself, if only he could forget the crowd and Jonathan behind that curtain. Jonathan often presses his lips together just as Michal does now. It is impossible not to see him in her.

_"You will have your husband’s duties... when you lie with me, you will suddenly recall how my sister looks in bed, and when you lie with her, you will recall me—because some feature, or sound, or gesture will be familiar."_

Jonathan had made the morose prediction in one of his melancholy moods before David went to obtain the dowry. David laughed it off, but now he has to look away to avoid looking at Michal under him, to avoid seeing Jonathan’s features in her, avoid seeing Jonathan’s reproof that stares at him through her glassy innocent eyes. Still, thoughts of Jonathan transport him from the bodily pleasure that is building in him.

***

"No."

It was like a blow to the gut. Jonathan had never refused David when they were alone and at leisure.

"What?"

"I feel that I uncover my sister's nakedness if I lie with you."

"That is plain foolishness," David said, trying to keep his voice from trembling with thwarted desire, sitting down on the bed beside Jonathan, caressing along his right arm, sinewy, as if fashioned to pull bowstrings back. “I am off to obtain the dowry tomorrow morning, and we may not share a bed for weeks.”

Jonathan gave no answer.

"What, are you so prudish suddenly? I have not even bedded her yet."

"Are you not resolved to?"

"Your father offers her to me."

"Yes, all the more reason to think twice about your choice."

David grew impatient and took the liberty of pushing Jonathan down on the bed. It was a presumptuous gesture, but it did not feel out of place between them, alone in Jonathan’s chamber. Jonathan, no matter how commanding and stoic on the battlefield, was pliant and yielding at night. But now, though he did not rebuff David, he did not reciprocate kisses either, and David felt his innards turn over in anxiety and impatience.

"Do you really believe I will die on such a petty mission? It is a trifle compared to what I achieved earlier. What you achieve in every campaign you venture on. Why do you fret over this so much?"

Jonathan’s face was turned to the side, gaze stubbornly fixed on his index finger, idly tracing the pattern woven into the coverlet.

"Jonathan, do you doubt me? Do you really fear that God would let me die?"

"No, He loves you too much for that." Jonathan's tone was cold. 

David laid a hand on Jonathan's chest, possessive but cautious. Jonathan was not easily offended, but neither was he easily appeased once he was in a brooding mood. It was like Saul’s madness, watered down.

"He loves me and loves you, and He would not part us, your Highness.”

“Your Highness? That’s something new. David, Beloved of God, Future King of Israel, Apple of Our Eye…”

David smiled, but would not back down, slinking to the floor, kneeling between Jonathan’s knees. “Will your Highness forgive his presumptuous but loyal vassal?”

“Humility does not suit you, David.” Jonathan pushed his head away, but David dove back.

“Jealousy of your sister does not suit you either.” 

Jonathan’s lips were wrapped into a faint smile, then they parted in a heady sigh as he felt David’s moist tongue run along his hip. Jonathan mumbled a word of protest as David’s hand deftly reached around to untie his girdle. The mouth was David's favorite instrument of pleasure. He felt he could show finer mastery with it than with his hips, and here he did not spare anything, kissing Jonathan all over, sucking only when he felt Jonathan's thighs begin to quiver.

Jonathan ceased struggling and went limp under David’s fierce grip. He sighed, and finally met David's pleading eyes, his face softened by recent pleasure. "Perhaps it is jealous, selfish interest on my part. But my father is not so short-sighted as you think. Of all people, he is most convinced God is with you. If you return and marry Michal... he will be the one to reap the benefits."

***

Jonathan had yielded that night, David recalls with some satisfaction. Yet suddenly Jonathan’s and Saul’s words to him stand out like a crisp warning. _Extend the House of Saul_. If Michal were to bear him a son now, would Saul not rejoice? Would not his own son, of royal lineage, supersede his commoner father in line for the throne? Already he has to contend with Saul’s four male heirs. Saul is not so old yet, and the boy might well come of age before it is time to pass on the crown.

David feels himself shake with rage at the realization. He has delivered foreskins like a dupe, when Saul’s ruse is far more clever and far-reaching.

Michal gives out a faint cry, and David realizes his thrusts have grown brutal in his anger.

The restless crowd outside begins whistling and whooping, evidently listening hungrily to the act which had been deathly silent up until now.

“When will my eldest son make me proud behind the bridal curtain?” David hears Saul’s words all too clearly.

“Soon enough, Father,” comes Jonathan’s answer, deliberate and calm in the face of public humiliation.

David looks down at Michal, pained and frantic, and suddenly he feels nauseous at the idea of a son, at Saul’s gleeful tone, at the idea of Jonathan taking a bride of his own ‘soon enough.’ How had all his plans and aspirations fallen apart in the span of an evening? Women will always be his undoing.

And David pulls out. Without thinking, really. Leaving Michal sprawled on the bed, mussed and confused.

It is a sin, not to finish. God killed Onan, in the olden days, for doing just that. David cannot stomach it, however. He rises off the bed and quickly pulls his girdle tight around his unsatisfied body.

“Is that-- is that all, my Lord?” Michal whispers, addressing him as husband for the first time.

David nods, pulling his tunic back on violently, even as she begins reciting the blessing over being fruitful and multiplying and raising her hips in hopes of a son taking root in her womb.

It feels wrong and sinful, and his body protests the stricture of the girdle, but a different sort of gratification begins to pool in David’s chest. He will play Saul at his own game. God help him if Michal bears him a child early enough that he would have to compete with him for the throne. He can restrain himself with her for years, if necessary. His spirits lift with this discovered new strength, and he offers his hand to the princess, wipes her further with the linen, waits until she dresses herself and arranges her hair, and calls out to Jonathan that the marriage has been consummated, handing over the linen sheet, lingering his hand over Jonathan’s a moment longer than necessary.

They dine splendidly-- Saul has spared no expense. He and David are most cordial and friendly to each other, drinking to each other’s health, and soon enjoying the effects of the fine Jordan Valley wine-- embracing each other with all the affection of blood relatives. Michal seems happy enough, and David remembers to lavish kisses on her from time to time, or feed each other small fig cakes, each time enduring the good-natured taunts of all the men at the table. All the men except Jonathan, seated across from him, watching him and Saul with intent eyes, sometimes chatting with his neighbors, pointedly avoiding looking up at the bloody linen draped in triumph over the head of the table.

The torches were still half full with oil when Jonathan stands and asks Saul to be excused. David cannot help but notice that another man leaves shortly thereafter. Benazzer—a Benjamite in Jonathan’s regiment, tall and comely, David now notices with a measure of agitation. David turns back to the table, but Saul has followed his gaze, and though perhaps it is only the wine, he has a disturbing glimmer in his eye.

“A second time you marry into my family.” Saul says it quietly, hardly audible over the din.

“Sorry?” David asks, as naively as he can, in turmoil over Jonathan’s departure more than Saul’s cryptic words.


End file.
